The audience is hushed, waiting for the actor’s first line.
As the spotlight shines and music starts, Kristin Vandenberg admires from above.
Everything is adding to the magic of the theatre.
Ms. V observes the fit of the costume, carefully altered to just the right size. She looks at the blending of the paint colors, making new textures and shapes. She admires the furniture, carefully built by her own students, to form a life-like scene.
Many people might not think about what goes on behind the curtain, and that’s where Ms. V’s story starts.
Her story begins with a passion for theatre, which leads her to Florida State University to major in Theatre Lighting Design.
Her story leads to a national theatre tour, and then back to Florida when she manages all the crews of the massive and infamous Tucker Civic Center in Tallahassee.
Her story changes quickly as Ms. V and her family pack up and move to Texas, where she opens the Performing Arts Center at Texas State University.
Her story takes us to McCallum Fine Arts Academy, where Ms. V has found her calling as the head technical theatre teacher.
“I do it for the kids,” Ms. V says. “Without them, none of this is worth it.”
Even though she feels the Fine Arts Academy can be isolated from the rest of the campus, she loves the role she brings to McCallum.
Day by day, Ms. Vandenberg teaches beginners how (and how not) to use power tools, the different illusions you can create with paint, and even tying knots that can be used in daily life. In her other classes, Ms. V works to help kids put on productions, inspiring them to fufill their own dreams, just as she has.
Editor’s note: The digital media students wrote 300-word stories that emulated the feature profiles written by Brady Dennis for the St. Petersburg Times in the mid-2000s. Shield co-editor in chief Alice Scott prepared a master class on Dennis’ stories for the newspaper staff, and adviser Dave Winter was so impressed with the lesson that he changed his feature profile assignment based on what Scott taught the staff about Dennis’ stories. As a result, we have a collection of wonderful short profiles—including this moving profile of technical theatre teacher Kristin Vandenberg—that are well-crafted, powerful and straight from the heart.
